Changes in Google's April 21st Algorithm
4/14/2015
It is widely known that Google will be changing it s Algorithm on April 21st. We believe Google will launch a new mobile crawler (probably with an Android user-agent) that can do a better job of crawling single-page web apps, Android apps, and maybe even Deep Links in iOS apps. The new Mobile-Friendly guidelines that launched last month focus on exposing JS and CSS because Android apps are built in Java, and single-page web apps rely heavily on JavaScript for their fluid, app-like experience.
Garry Illyes mentioned that Google is retiring their old AJAX indexing instructions, but did not say how they would be replaced, except to specify in a Google+ post that Google would not click links to get more content. Instead, they would need an OnLoad event to trigger further crawling. These webmaster instructions for making AJAX crawlable were often relied on as a way to make single-page web apps crawlable, and we think that feeds will play a role here, too, as part of the replacement. Relying more heavily on feeds also makes it easier for Google to scrape data directly into SERPS, which they have been doing more and more. This probably will include the ability to scrape forms directly from Rich snippets.
We also think mobile UX indicators that are currently showing at the bottom of the Google PageSpeed tool will play into the new mobile algorithm—we have actually witnessed Google testing their inclusion in the Mobile-Friendly tool already, as shown below, and of course, they were recently added to everyone's Webmaster Tools reports. It is possible that the current focus on CSS and JavaScript is to ensure that as many pages are in the new index as possible at launch.
What about sites that redirect to a mobile subdomain?
Answer: This is an interesting question, because immediately after the roll-out of the Mobile-Friendly tagging, we actually saw significantly more mDot ('m.') websites ranking well in the mobile SERPS. It's almost like they counted the mobile subdomain as a Mobile-Friendly signal, but started the algorithm fresh, with no historical data to indicate which other sites had fewer obvious signals of mobility, like a responsive design, or an adaptive or dynamically served mobile site. It is also interesting to note that many of the Google representatives seem to have recently backed off of their strong insistence on responsive design. They still say that it is the least error-prone, and easiest to crawl and index, but they also now seem to be more willing to acknowledge the other viable mobile site architectures.
Garry Illyes mentioned that Google is retiring their old AJAX indexing instructions, but did not say how they would be replaced, except to specify in a Google+ post that Google would not click links to get more content. Instead, they would need an OnLoad event to trigger further crawling. These webmaster instructions for making AJAX crawlable were often relied on as a way to make single-page web apps crawlable, and we think that feeds will play a role here, too, as part of the replacement. Relying more heavily on feeds also makes it easier for Google to scrape data directly into SERPS, which they have been doing more and more. This probably will include the ability to scrape forms directly from Rich snippets.
We also think mobile UX indicators that are currently showing at the bottom of the Google PageSpeed tool will play into the new mobile algorithm—we have actually witnessed Google testing their inclusion in the Mobile-Friendly tool already, as shown below, and of course, they were recently added to everyone's Webmaster Tools reports. It is possible that the current focus on CSS and JavaScript is to ensure that as many pages are in the new index as possible at launch.
What about sites that redirect to a mobile subdomain?
Answer: This is an interesting question, because immediately after the roll-out of the Mobile-Friendly tagging, we actually saw significantly more mDot ('m.') websites ranking well in the mobile SERPS. It's almost like they counted the mobile subdomain as a Mobile-Friendly signal, but started the algorithm fresh, with no historical data to indicate which other sites had fewer obvious signals of mobility, like a responsive design, or an adaptive or dynamically served mobile site. It is also interesting to note that many of the Google representatives seem to have recently backed off of their strong insistence on responsive design. They still say that it is the least error-prone, and easiest to crawl and index, but they also now seem to be more willing to acknowledge the other viable mobile site architectures.
How do I know if my site meets Google's requirements for mobile friendliness?
Google has created a Mobile-Friendliness tool that will give you a 'yes' or 'no' answer on a per-url basis. Pages are evaluated individually, so another quick way to get a sense for how your top pages perform is to do a "site:" query for the domain in question on your phone. That will allow you to see all the pages indexed to the domain, and evaluate which ones are considered Mobile-Friendly and which are not, without having to submit them to the tool one at a time.
Google has been clear that Mobile-Friendly test results are binary, meaning that your page is either Mobile-Friendly or it is not. There is no 50% or 70% Mobile-Friendly result possible—no middle ground. They have also taken care to specify that Google's Mobile-Friendly evaluations are somewhat instant, implying that there is no proving-time or "sandbox" associated with the tag, but this could be somewhat misleading. There may be no intentional time-delay before a page is awarded the Mobile-Friendly notation, but it will only change after a crawl of the site indicates that the page is now Mobile-Friendly, so it is close to instantaneous if the pages are getting crawled on a very regular basis.
We have found that the tool result does not necessarily match up with what we are seeing on our phones. We have occasionally also noticed that sometimes two pages in the same page template will perform differently, even though the content that changes between the template is primarily text. Both of these variations could simply be an indication of real-time delay between the tool and the crawler—the tool does an ad-hoc check on the URL to assess mobile-friendliness, but if the bot has not been by the site to evaluate its mobile friendliness recently, then the page in question would not yet have the Mobile-Friendly designation in the SERP. With this in mind, remember that when you are updating a page, and pushing it live for testing, you must use the tool to see if the update has been successful, until the site is re-crawled. This also means that once you see success in the tool, the best way to get the Mobile-Friendly designation to show up in the results faster might just be to push a sitemap in Webmaster tools, and try to trigger a fresh crawl.
Will having a mobile app impact my mobile rankings
Answer: There are two things to consider here. First, if a mobile search query is highly correlated with mobile app listings (the app "download pages" in the Google Play and iOS App Stores), your app could see significantly more visibility within mobile search results pages. This is because Google has started treating apps as a new kind of universal search result, returning an "App Pack" of Google Play results for certain searches on Android devices (shown at the right), and adding an Apps drop-down to the main nav-bar on iOS devices (not shown).
An "App Pack" is a group of related apps that rank together for a given query, shown together in a box separate from the inline organic search results. It has different formatting and an "Apps" header. These often float to the top of a mobile search result, pushing the second or sometimes even the first organic result below the fold. This is also discussed in Justin Briggs' article about apps. Currently, there is a high correlation between Google Play "App Pack" rankings and exact-match keywords in the app title. Google also seems to be evaluating app quality here and tries to serve only higher-than-average rated apps in the App Pack (this generally tends to be around a 3.5 – 4 star minimum for common keyword phrases).
If Google starts to serve these App Packs on iOS device searches as well, all apps that have keyword-optimized titles and have high-quality ratings and reviews could jump up to the top of the mobile web SERPs, increasing their visability and likely downloads. Conversely, mobile websites that currently enjoy an above-the-fold #1 or #2 organic ranking may get pushed below the fold in mobile SERPs, especially for queries that are highly correlated with mobile app results. This could cause a negative impact on mobile website visibility (without necessarily changing standard numeric rankings), in cases where a query returns a mobile App Pack—regardless of whether or not an app within that pack is yours.
Second, Mariya Moeva (Google Webmaster Trends Analyst) recently announced at SMX West that Google will be considering "high quality" apps to be a positive ranking factor in mobile search. We took this to mean that Deep Links between your website and your app will improve your website rankings in mobile search. Deep Links are different from app store listings in the App Store or Google Play, because they link directly to a specific screen within your app experience. They look just like regular links in the mobile search result, but when you click them, you are given the option of opening the link in on the web or in the app.
Currently, if you add Deep Links to your Android mobile app and associate your app URIs with corresponding (content-matching) webpages, Google will recognize the connection between your app content and your web content (and allow users who have your app installed to access your content directly in the mobile app).
Google has created a Mobile-Friendliness tool that will give you a 'yes' or 'no' answer on a per-url basis. Pages are evaluated individually, so another quick way to get a sense for how your top pages perform is to do a "site:" query for the domain in question on your phone. That will allow you to see all the pages indexed to the domain, and evaluate which ones are considered Mobile-Friendly and which are not, without having to submit them to the tool one at a time.
Google has been clear that Mobile-Friendly test results are binary, meaning that your page is either Mobile-Friendly or it is not. There is no 50% or 70% Mobile-Friendly result possible—no middle ground. They have also taken care to specify that Google's Mobile-Friendly evaluations are somewhat instant, implying that there is no proving-time or "sandbox" associated with the tag, but this could be somewhat misleading. There may be no intentional time-delay before a page is awarded the Mobile-Friendly notation, but it will only change after a crawl of the site indicates that the page is now Mobile-Friendly, so it is close to instantaneous if the pages are getting crawled on a very regular basis.
We have found that the tool result does not necessarily match up with what we are seeing on our phones. We have occasionally also noticed that sometimes two pages in the same page template will perform differently, even though the content that changes between the template is primarily text. Both of these variations could simply be an indication of real-time delay between the tool and the crawler—the tool does an ad-hoc check on the URL to assess mobile-friendliness, but if the bot has not been by the site to evaluate its mobile friendliness recently, then the page in question would not yet have the Mobile-Friendly designation in the SERP. With this in mind, remember that when you are updating a page, and pushing it live for testing, you must use the tool to see if the update has been successful, until the site is re-crawled. This also means that once you see success in the tool, the best way to get the Mobile-Friendly designation to show up in the results faster might just be to push a sitemap in Webmaster tools, and try to trigger a fresh crawl.
Will having a mobile app impact my mobile rankings
Answer: There are two things to consider here. First, if a mobile search query is highly correlated with mobile app listings (the app "download pages" in the Google Play and iOS App Stores), your app could see significantly more visibility within mobile search results pages. This is because Google has started treating apps as a new kind of universal search result, returning an "App Pack" of Google Play results for certain searches on Android devices (shown at the right), and adding an Apps drop-down to the main nav-bar on iOS devices (not shown).
An "App Pack" is a group of related apps that rank together for a given query, shown together in a box separate from the inline organic search results. It has different formatting and an "Apps" header. These often float to the top of a mobile search result, pushing the second or sometimes even the first organic result below the fold. This is also discussed in Justin Briggs' article about apps. Currently, there is a high correlation between Google Play "App Pack" rankings and exact-match keywords in the app title. Google also seems to be evaluating app quality here and tries to serve only higher-than-average rated apps in the App Pack (this generally tends to be around a 3.5 – 4 star minimum for common keyword phrases).
If Google starts to serve these App Packs on iOS device searches as well, all apps that have keyword-optimized titles and have high-quality ratings and reviews could jump up to the top of the mobile web SERPs, increasing their visability and likely downloads. Conversely, mobile websites that currently enjoy an above-the-fold #1 or #2 organic ranking may get pushed below the fold in mobile SERPs, especially for queries that are highly correlated with mobile app results. This could cause a negative impact on mobile website visibility (without necessarily changing standard numeric rankings), in cases where a query returns a mobile App Pack—regardless of whether or not an app within that pack is yours.
Second, Mariya Moeva (Google Webmaster Trends Analyst) recently announced at SMX West that Google will be considering "high quality" apps to be a positive ranking factor in mobile search. We took this to mean that Deep Links between your website and your app will improve your website rankings in mobile search. Deep Links are different from app store listings in the App Store or Google Play, because they link directly to a specific screen within your app experience. They look just like regular links in the mobile search result, but when you click them, you are given the option of opening the link in on the web or in the app.
Currently, if you add Deep Links to your Android mobile app and associate your app URIs with corresponding (content-matching) webpages, Google will recognize the connection between your app content and your web content (and allow users who have your app installed to access your content directly in the mobile app).
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